Hansa - Etat De l'Or War
The Dwarves and Etat de Lor then attacked the Republic of Hansa, Etat's traditional enemy's with whom they had clashed many times before, since the ancient times of the first world. England also joined the war against former Woadians who were part of Hansa. At this point the Brothers managed to attain white peace, leaving Hansa outnumbered four to one. Hanseatic forts were all quickly rendered useless by preemptive siege works while they were offline, and during the first few days many Hanseans were slaughtered, including an incident where a Hansan died at his bed 8 times over. Things initially looked very grim for Hansa, and some of the server's more experienced players criticized the coalition for "gangbanging" a faction of predominantly inexperienced members. Despite the mismatch, Hansa managed to gather enough extra players and mercenaries from other factions (notably Belka and the Northmen), hermits, exiles and other servers to match the huge coalition arrayed against it. England began to make accusations of unfairness that such a small faction had ballooned to bigger than the coalition it was facing, drawing ridicule from experienced observers. This was despite the fact England had built an extensive and ugly "seige camp" right outside one Hansan settlement that was borderline griefing and required extensive work to remove after the war. The English forces had also done some extremely disorganized mining in Hanseatic territory. = Background = During the Dwarven - Brotherhood War some Hanseatic members had vocally supported the Northern - Brotherhood alliance and one had even joined their ranks to fight Etat De l'Or. Following the moderation imposed truce of that war, tensions between The Hansa and Etat De l'Or began to rise, until a Hanseatic member was slain under obscure circumstances inside Etat's lands. This would provide the spark that started the war. Some Northmen, declared at this point their support for the Hanseatic cause. It was later shown that Hanseatic leadership had sought to make the Ottomans inside Etat De l'Or rebel from Celoxia's rule, however this turned to be a ruse and Jalzara's Ottomans stayed loyal to Celoxia while creating a true casus belli for Etat to use. The English would eventually join this war since they still held a grudge following the Oxfordian-Woads War. The Dwarves followed suit, not wanting to let Etat De l'Or lose much manpower. = Engagements = Nether Rail System Engagements Hanseatic raiders sought to keep the English supply lines cut. On many occasions, the Kaiser led war parties into the English tunnels to intercept the English reinforcements to the Etat war-effort. In one of these engagements three englishmen were slain by the Kaiser alone while his guards didn't survive the exchange of arrows. The rearmed forces clashed once again in Oxford it's self, and this time the Kaiser was ambushed and slain by the English troops along with his army, because his guards didn't regroup fast enough to protect him. Seige of Oxford Hansa rallied its forces and attacked England's capital of Oxford with 9 players, just 2 of whom had diamond armour, against 14 coalition defenders, 10 of whom were in diamond. The weaker Hanseatic force was almost wiped out in the initial battle but still managed to occupy England's territory and pick them off one by one as they came online, which caused them much grief and effectively removed them from the war. Etat de Lor came under similar attack and was forced moved its entire player base to Dwarven territory to avoid Hanseatic raiders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnnhoNbrAKY Siege of Celostad and Peace The final battle of the war came after white peace was agreed between Hansa and the coalition of the Dwarves, Etat and England. The coalition took up positions in an Etat fortress on the Hansa-Etat border for a "fun battle" which would not affect the peace. Hansa gathered the most powerful and well equipped army that any side mustered during the war, with much more diamond armour than it had previously been using, and attacked the coaltion forces. The Hanseans quickly broke through the walls, spilled into the coalition's position and massacred them, taking few casualties. Respawning coalition members, no longer caring about their manpower, continued to attack the Hansans until about a third of the initial Hansan force remained, although the coalition respawners took far more casualties as they were unarmoured and fighting against troops in diamond. During this slaughter, Etat manpower fell from about 55% to about 30%. Although Hansan doge 123brogan chose to honour the peace (something the large foreign contingent of his army critisized him for as Etat de Lor was perhaps the most unpopular and aggressive faction on the server, with most players and factions harbouring grudges against it). After the battle Hansa shrunk to just over half its war time strength as its foreign soldiers left and its mercenaries received their final installments. Some new players and exiles found their home in Hansa and remained.